CHAPTER XI
A SURPRISED DEACON
Deacon Blackford had certainly heard a noise. It was not the slight sound made by Joe Strong, when that young magician made his escape from the house, but it was the louder noise made by the two rascals in taking the papers and money.
“What’s that, Amos?” asked Mrs. Abigail Blackford, as she too heard the suspicious sound.
“I don’t know,” he answered sleepily enough. He had lain awake the early part of the night, tossing restlessly, for the memory of the scene in the afternoon with the two men had bothered the deacon.
“But, Amos,” persisted his wife, “it is a noise.”
“Yes,” he admitted, after listening a moment, “it surely is.”
“Hadn’t you better get up and see what it is?” she suggested.
He waited a moment before replying, meanwhile listening intently. The sound was plainer now.
“Couldn’t be cats, could it?” the deacon asked, and his voice was hopeful. He did not like to get up, for he was tired and sleepy.
“Cats! No, the idea!” his wife exclaimed. “It’s somebody downstairs inside the house, Amos, and you’ve got to get up and see who it is.”
“Queer time for anybody to be calling,” grumbled Joe’s foster-father.
“Calling! It isn’t anybody calling!” exclaimed Mrs. Blackford in a shrill whisper. “It’s burglars if it’s anybody. Get up, Amos, and drive ’em out. Call Joe to help you. He’s good and strong. He can handle almost as much as you can.”
But without waiting to call Joe, Mr. Blackford gave a jump out of bed and hurried down the stairs in the darkness. As he went down he became aware of a light in the back parlor—the room where stood his desk, which was like a safe to him, and the old clock where his wife insisted on keeping her small roll of bills, on the theory that burglars would never think of money being in a clock.
“It is some one,” muttered the deacon. “I’m glad I got up.”
He hurried on, taking no pains to muffle the “clap-clap” of the heels of his slippers, into which he had hurriedly thrust his feet. “Clap-clap” they went, down the stairs.
Just as he reached the door of the back parlor the deacon saw a form disappearing through the window. Who it was he could not see, as just then the heel of the person making an egress in this queer fashion hit and knocked over the lamp, which exploded with a slight noise, the burning oil setting fire to the carpet and the lace curtains.
For the moment the fear of fire was uppermost in the mind of the deacon. He saw the stream of blazing oil spreading, and he knew that in a few moments more the whole room would be ablaze.
But the deacon was quick, and, fortunately did not lose his presence of mind. He caught up a heavy rug, and, not going near enough the blaze to let his own thin night garments catch, he tossed the rug over the blaze, smothering it.
Then with a quick motion he tore down the burning lace curtains, and tossed them out of the open window, where they could harmlessly consume themselves on the grass. The deacon burned his hands slightly in pulling down the curtains, but he did not notice that in the excitement of the moment.
The fire was out almost as soon as it had started, for he had tossed the rug over burning lamp and all, and now only some dense black smoke remained to tell what had happened.
“Whew!” panted the deacon, “that was a close call! It’s a good thing I got up when I did, or the whole house would have gone! A narrow shave!”
He got a pail of water to toss on the smouldering carpet. After he had lifted the smothering rug, and as he doused out the few remaining sparks his wife called to him.
“Anybody down there, Amos?”
“No, nobody now,” grimly answered the old man.
“Well, it smells like some one was smoking down there. I smell smoke, Amos. There must be somebody there!”
“No! They’ve gone,” he answered. “It was the lamp you smelled smoking. It blew up!”
“Blew up! Deacon Blackford what ails you? What’s happened, anyhow?”
“I don’t rightly know yet, myself. Seems quite considerable must have happened, and it might have been worse. You can come down if you want to. There’s nobody here now but me, and the fire’s out.”
“The fire’s out!” cried his wife from the head of the stairs. “What fire? Who started the fire?”
“Come down and you’ll see it all,” he answered, looking about to make sure there were no stray sparks anywhere.
Mrs. Blackford lost no time in descending, and her surprise was as great as was the deacon’s. But it was the loss of her curtains, the burned hole in the carpet, the broken lamp and the charred rug that surprised Joe’s foster-mother. She had not seen the intruder go out of the window, as had her husband.
“What in the world—how did it—who——?” she began, hardly knowing what question to ask first. But the deacon cut in with:
“I don’t know any more about it than you do. I came down in time to see somebody go through the window and kick over the lamp. Then the fire started and I had to hustle to put it out.”
“Some one went through the window! Who in the world could it have been? Did you speak to him?”
“Burglars don’t generally leave a card, nor stop to talk,” answered the old man grimly. “But I guess——”
The deacon did not finish, but crossed the room to his desk. He noticed that the flap was down, and he knew he had closed and locked it the night before. Hurriedly he ran through his papers, and then straightened up with a queer look on his face.
“They’re gone!” he gasped. “Gone!”
“What?” asked his wife. “What’s gone?”
“My investment papers—the securities—the only thing I had to show what money was due me. They’re gone and whoever has ’em can make use of ’em! I’ve been robbed!”
Turning again to the desk he opened a small drawer.
“He took the money too!” he muttered. “Every cent of it, and there was nigh on to a hundred dollars there!”
He fairly moaned out the words, and putting his hand to his head sank weakly into a chair. Mrs. Blackford regarded her husband pityingly and darted toward him, fearing he was going to faint, though he had never done it in his life. Then a sudden idea came to her.
She rushed over to the clock, opened it and fell back, raising her hands in the air in astonishment.
“Mine’s gone too!” she cried! “The thirty-nine dollars I had in the clock! The burglar took that too! Oh, this is terrible! You must call the constables, Amos! We’ve been robbed! They took my money! Call Joe, and send him after Hen Sylvester. I’ll call him,” for the deacon seemed incapable of action just then.
Mrs. Blackford hurried upstairs, and called:
“Joe! Joe! Get up! There’ve been burglars in the house! They’ve robbed your pa and me, and set fire to the place! Get up and go for the constables!”
“Is he coming?” asked the deacon, whose heart was not beating quite so fast now.
“I can’t seem to make him hear,” said Mrs. Blackford.
“I’ll rout him out,” said the old man. “I guess he’d better go after the constable. He can go quicker than I can.”
But Joe did not answer to this summons either, and when the door of his room was opened, showing his undisturbed bed, and when a quick search revealed that he had taken most of his belongings the deacon jumped to the most natural conclusion.
“He’s gone, Abigail!” he cried. “Joe’s run away, and it was him that robbed us and set fire to the place!”
“Oh, no, Deacon! He wouldn’t do such a thing!”
“Woman, I tell you he did!” cried the deacon in his most thundering tones. “He’s robbed us and run away! I’ll get the law after him! The thief!” and with a face flushed with wrath the deacon proceeded to dress, muttering the while:
“He robbed us! Joe robbed us and ran away! I always knew that the circus and magician blood in him would tell! Now it’s come out with a vengeance!”